I recently watched a bunch of 90s fatalities in fighting games, read Treyarch saying that they had to cut some of the violence from Black Ops and read about what Valve had to reference when developing L4D2. Which inspired me to write about the violence in games. And no, I don’t me the kind of post about “moms against games” or “Hitler conducted genocide because he loved violent videogames”. What I’m curious about is – do we actually need “realistic” violence in games?
So, let’s remember how classic Mortal Kombat worked, since it’s a perfect example for the topic. This was one of the key games that led to the creation of the game ratings and was one of the most scandalous titles to exist before GTA became the new cool kid to hate. It wasn’t designed to be played by children, but, well, I did play it when I was about 10 on arcades. And it was awesome. So, I’ll try to analyze why it was awesome. Probably because most of the Fatalities and combos were ridiculous. One fighter uses one hand to tear off a head and the entire spine out of a body. Another rips the heart out with one punch. That yellow dude has a skull instead of a face and he uses it to burn people alive. This is silly, over the top and extremely enjoyable. A perfect way to end a fight in MK. Now, try imagining MK looking like, say, that MK show they teased recently. As a movie or a show that looks cool, sure. But… having torture-porn fatalities in a videogame would’ve probably made original MK far less popular than it actually got.
I hit a pedestrian with a car in GTA III. Well shit, I can live with that. I might’ve not even noticed that. In Half-Life 2 I tried to crowbar a dead body of the combine cops and saw it ragdoll realistically (as much as the game could, that is). And it was so disgusting that I never did it again. Imagine a level in Call of Duty where dead are being run over by tanks, those metal machines of death squeezing the skulls and the entrails out of the bodies, wails of the dying heard all around you. Fuck the ratings or technological limitations, just imagine that this can be done. Would you actually want to play it? I doubt even soldiers who could see that happen would even stomach seeing that. Heck, they’d probably be the last people to want to see that.
When you defeat a kombatant, they explode in a rain of bones that could construct about 5 human skeletons, it’s fun and funny. It feels over the top and entertaining. If the violence disgusts you, like it would in real life, I doubt you’d want to participate in it. A smart developer can evoke feelings of disgust, of fear without actually using something that will make you stop playing the game. Make you understand the gravity of the actions, without letting you go through the heaviest and most horrifying parts of it. That’s what games and movies do.
This Gamer talk on game design was sponsored by the Joe’s Meat Pies. By the tastiest and meatiest pies only at Joe’s.